


Infamously Bad

by Cheating_Jumper



Series: Jumpchain [4]
Category: Jumpchain, inFAMOUS (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-23 05:30:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14928030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheating_Jumper/pseuds/Cheating_Jumper
Summary: The Jumper gets a girlfriend, so yay! Lesbians! Well, a lesbian and a bisexual genderfluid person who is currently female. No sex scenes, but a couple of pre-sex scenes and a post sex scene





	Infamously Bad

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah... I have very little knowledge of Infamous beyond the ads and a quick wiki trawl, so don't expect me to go into much depth of the world.

The first thing I was aware of was a pressure on my chest. I thought it might have been Evil since sometimes he likes to sit on my chest and yell for me to wake up and feed him, but when I reached up to pet him I didn’t feel something soft and furry, I felt something soft and squishy. 

I opened my eyes in confusion. Oh right, boobs. I forgot I was female now. I didn’t realise how heavy they would be though. I mean, I knew they would be, but there’s a difference between knowing and experiencing. 

I was in bed in my safe house. I got up and looked around the place. It was nothing special, small bedroom, small kitchenette, small bathroom, small lounge/dining with a rickety table right against an old ratty couch with a TV from circa 1999 opposite. I’ll be honest, this was pretty much exactly the kind of place I’d’ve looked to rent in my first life: affordable and not total shite. 

Well, first things first. I stripped off and went to the bathroom to look myself over in the large mirror over the sink. I didn’t look too bad, pretty good in fact. I looked kinda like a combination of Hayley Atwell and Rashida Jones, with a larger nose and muscular. I wasn’t Overwatch Zarya muscly, but getting there wouldn’t be hard. 

The biggest change, of course, was my chest. Endowed put me up a few cup sizes, so I was expecting C, maybe D, not H. I went to school with someone with tits this big, and she got a breast reduction as soon as she could afford it. I’m pretty sure Chan overestimated how big my boobs would be if I hadn’t gotten Endowed, but what did you expect from a pervy N.O.B. like her. 

Twisting around and flexing my back, I didn’t have my wings anymore. That was weird, and a real pain in the arse. Maybe I should’ve just gotten more Shape and Appeal if I didn’t get to keep my wings. I’m really annoyed about that. 

 

I had a cold shower, and felt a rush as I absorbed the energy from the icy water. Not sure if it’s because of the Addicted drawback or if that’s how it normally is, but it felt goooood. 

I wrapped myself in a towel and walked into the main room to watch tv, hoping to catch the news and figure out some of this setting, when I saw my bag on the table with a large manila envelope leaning against it. 

I went in the bag first and found all my items, making sure I had everything. The guns were, well, guns, and the vest had a velcro patch on the front that said Titty Monster. Great, thanks Chan. 

The baton was more interesting though. Whereas before it was basically just a leather wrapped handle when collapsed, now it had five prongs or arms pushed together coming out the top. When I extended it, they turned into large ripply ridge things that made it look like the glass mace in Skyrim. It was pretty cool. And speaking of, I tried pushing some of my newly collected cold energy into it and it practically glowed white as mist streamed off it as its temperature dropped. So fucking cool. 

I put aside the ice mace for a moment and opened the manila envelope. Inside was a sheaf of paperwork, including a birth certificate, a driver’s license, a passport, and a deed to the house, all in the name of Hannah Harding. I guess that’s my name for the next decade. Wait...

I went and found a bra in the bedroom (it’s nice that it came with a change of clothes, but I still had to get more than two outfits) and just as I thought, size HH. Gee, thanks again Chan. Great sense of humour there. 

Shaking my head, I went back to the table to go through the rest of the stuff in the envelope. After the paperwork was a short letter from Chan. 

 

Hey there Jumper, liking your new look? I sure am! These should help with any ID checks you find. The license will expire around year five, so don’t forget to renew it!

I also took the liberty of putting your wings only on your new default body. Just visualise looking the way you were and you should be able to change between base forms easy peasy. 

One last thing, I left you a little prezzie in the envelope. 

I can’t wait to see what you do this Jump,

Love from Chan

 

There was even a lip print on the paper, presumably from where she kissed it. 

Shaking out the envelope there was a wad of money, $500 in fifties and twenties. After growing up with Aussie money and then spending ten years with Pokémon money, American money looks really ugly. And why are they all the same shade of green? How are you supposed to know which note you want at a glance? 

Whatever, doesn’t matter. This was pretty nice, thanks Chan. 

I decided to see if I could change back to my body mod. I concentrated and my body seemed to ripple for a moment, then there I was, exactly how I had been in my warehouse. I concentrated again, and I looked how I had in Pokéworld. Not bad, this would certainly break the ice at parties. One last time and I was back to being Hannah Harding, ice Conduit and, sigh, titty monster. 

Well I can’t spend all day faffing around like this. I need to try out my new powers! 

 

* * *

 

 

Three hours later and I have come to the definitive conclusion that I made the best decision with cryokinesis. Ice powers are awesome. I still need practice with them, obviously, but I think I’ve got a handle on the basics. 

I opened the portal to the house in my warehouse and headed to the kitchen for food. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting. All the food was some sort of casserole that looked ...edible. Yeah, definitely gonna need to get more than this. I can’t live on casseroles for ten years. I pulled out my laptop and brought up a map of the neighbourhood. Looks like the closest place to get food is only a ten minute walk, great. I’ll see if I can get an attachable basket for my bike too, that’ll be easier than walking around with groceries. I’m not gonna bother getting a car here, the safe house is on the blind side of an abandoned block of flats and only accessible by a back alley off a back alley connected via a one way street. The logistics of getting a car here is ridiculous. Regardless, I needed actual food, so I got on my bike and pedalled to the shop

 

And that’s when I found my second drawback. There were a bunch of wankers trying to hold up the store. They looked like wannabe thugs, half a dozen white guys with shaved heads or gross dreadlocks, wearing their pants halfway to their knees and baggy shirts, three of them waving handguns around. They looked like bad stereotypes out of an early 2000’s tv show. I considered just turning around and leaving, but I couldn’t. I spent most of my first life angry and powerless, now I had powers I had to use them. 

I locked my bike to a streetlight and went inside. 

“Hello boys, I don’t suppose you’d consider putting away the guns and just buggering off would you?” I asked calmly, my hands held about chest height. 

“Fuck off bitch, 'less you wanna join the curry muncher,” one of the gun toters said, turning to look at me and grinning suggestively. “On second thought, a hot bitch like you might be a lotta fun. How’s about you an’ me go round back?”

I rolled my eyes. 

“How utterly charming, my pants are dropping at the mere thought,” I replied, completely deadpan. “Look, either fuck off or I make you fuck off.”

They laughed and a second one pointed his gun at me. They were about to speak when I shot shards of ice at them. The two with guns got the main brunt of the shot, the ice sinking into their chests and arms, while the other two facing me got hit in the shoulder. 

The last two turned their attentions completely to me at their mates’ screams and exclaimed. The one with the gun went to fire at me, but I broke his arm with telekinesis before he could aim properly. The other guy though, he thrust his hands at me and sent a stream of pinkish red squares. Those things fucking hurt, like having a swarm of wasps continuously stinging me, so I may have gone a little overboard and sent a large icicle through his head. 

He and the two I’d hit hard with the ice shotgun weren’t moving and were leaking blood all over the floor. I’d never actually killed anyone before, it was gonna take me a moment to process all this. 

While I was frozen with realisation, the others were moving, running out and yelling at me. Probably threats of retribution but I wasn’t listening to them. 

I only came to my senses when I realised the store clerk was still on the floor behind the checkout. He was bleeding from a shoulder wound where one of the dickheads had shot him. I checked to make sure the bullet wasn’t still in him, it wasn’t, before putting my hand over the hole and pushing energy into him. He gasped at the cold rushing into him, knitting his flesh back together, leaving only a slight bruise covered with a thin layer of frost. 

“You alright mate?” I asked as I helped him sit up. 

“For now I am, thank you, but those-” he said something I didn’t catch, an insult in Hindi I think, “-will be back. Their bosses have been trying to get me to pay protection for months now. I told them I do not need protection, so they send those-” the Hindi insult again, sounded like randwa? “-to show that I do. But I think I like your version of protection better”

I laughed a little with him and made some awkward small talk for a few minutes while I did my best to remember the first aid I learned about fifteen years ago. Once I was satisfied he wasn’t going to haemorrhage or turn to ice from my heal pulse, I asked him if he could get some cleaning supplies while I took care of the bodies. His face went a little pale, but he complied. 

I grabbed some duct tape and taped two of the bodies’ wrists together, then slung the third over my shoulder and dragged the taped two by their joined hands out and around the building. I looked for a blind spot in the shop’s cameras and opened a portal to the warehouse. A few moments later and all three were in the stasis pods. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it’d do as a temporary measure. 

I went back in and helped Sanjeev clean up the blood. After that I bought enough food for me, Evil, and the Pokémon for a week (which involved a lot of meat, mostly for Chazza), which Sanjeev gave me a 50% discount on. Told me I was welcome back any time and I’d keep the discount. He is one hell of a guy. 

 

* * *

 

 

Even with Sanjeev’s generosity, I was down nearly half the cash Chan had spotted me and had no background in this world to get a job. I needed money; more than just that, I needed a reliable source of money. Plus there was the matter of the bodies I had in stasis...

I spent an hour or so with Evil, thinking over what happened. I’d never killed anyone before, yet it didn’t feel like as big a deal as I thought it would. It barely had any impact, emotionally speaking. It was a shock at the time, but now... now I was just kinda hungry. 

I couldn’t move with the cat on me, so I TK’d over an apple to munch on while I thought. 

No. No more thinking about it. If I don’t stop now, I’ll just keep spiralling. What I need to think about is what I’m going to do with the bodies. They can’t stay in stasis pods forever and I can’t keep them, or can I? I mean, you never know when a body might come in handy, and I’ve got heaps of room in the warehouse. The only problem is how to keep them from rotting... Duh, I have ice powers. I’ll just freeze them until I can get a bunch of walk in freezers. 

 

After the cat finished his nap on my leg, I went over to the bodies and rifled through their pockets. I found a couple of IDs, some credit cards, about $98 in cash (it was still weird to me that they used dollar notes instead of dollar coins in America), their phones (which I destroyed), and their guns. I’m not an expert on guns, but I’m pretty sure the one Chan gave me is a lot better than the ones they had, but whatever, I’ll keep ‘em. 

I froze them in three big chunks of ice. It was harder to do that than just shooting icicles, but it was good practice for later and I managed ok. 

 

The next few days were fairly uneventful. I just wandered around the neighbourhood to get my bearings, and practising with my powers. I was pretty good with telekinesis, but I still hadn’t got the hang of TK flight yet. The best I could do was a kind of slow fall hover. Figuring out how to fly with wings was even harder. I got Chazza to help me a bit, watching what he did, but I was still at baby bird levels of ineffectual flapping. It was getting easier to use my cryokinesis too, not that it was true cryokinesis since I couldn’t control it after it was made. It was more cryogeneration, but that’s not as catchy. Regardless, I was getting pretty good with my ice powers. 

 

Day 5 and I was just about ready. I summoned and banished each of my pokéballs in turn, slightly nervous as I walked around the area, looking as vulnerable as I could, searching for the retribution of the drawback gang. Didn’t take too long, only a couple of hours of walking the streets at night before they found me. 

I brought up an ice shield as they drove by, shooting at me, then I sent out Cera in front of the car. 

Most vehicles in Pokéworld were built to withstand collisions with large elemental beasts and stay mostly intact. Infamous world cars, not so much. That thing crumpled like a tin can. The crash and the appearance of a metal and stone triceratops seemed to have shaken the gang members a tad. I had Gladys haul them out of the car, and told Cera she could eat it but not to have any engine parts. The fuel would make her sick, poor thing. 

I froze their hands and feet as they were placed in front of me, took everything they had in their pockets, and told them to leave me alone or I wouldn’t be as considerate next time. I stuck a tracker on each of their jackets with telekinesis as I walked and talked in front of them, making sure their attention was on me rather than the small touches under their collars. It was a warm night, so I’m sure the ice would melt relatively soon and they’d be off to report what happened. In the meantime, I took stock of what I got from them. About two grand in cash (holy fuck they had a lot), five pistols, three SMGs, a shotgun, a heap of ammo, another credit card, a couple switchblades, and four phones. I tried to open the phones and destroyed the two I couldn’t. The other two weren’t locked, which was just stupid of them. I went through everything, copying details into my pokégear cum mobile phone. It was mostly trash, but there were a few interesting nuggets, like what they had been doing before they spotted me, as well as a description of me and what I had done to the guys in the shop. I guess I had really pissed someone off  

My locator beeped as it registered movement. I guess they got out sooner than expected. I opened the phones, froze the interiors and tossed them away. I moved across the rooftops, following the locator. I took the phones specifically so they’d have to go back to their boss in person rather than calling it in and it looked like it was working since they were moving as a group somewhere other than a hospital. 

Following them slowly, I got to what seemed to be their base about two minutes after them. It looked like the shitty hotel/flop house place from the Blues Brothers that Carrie Fisher blew up. Adjusting my sight to see heat was more than a little weird, but it showed a different scene than I was expecting. Rather than having a handful of people scattered through the building, there were guards at the door, a fuckton of people on each of the three floors, and one room with only a handful of people. My guess was that was where Mr Head Honcho was. 

I moved over to the roof so I could listen in properly without the train overhead interrupting. 

Well, shit. Turns out that a) it’s not Head Honcho, just a lieutenant; b) the pixellator was a good mate of his; and c) the dickhead whose arm I broke was Head Honcho’s nephew. Fucking hell. I’m just tripping over clichés here, aren’t I? Still, I did choose the drawback so I’ll have to live with it. 

 

I heard everything I needed as Mr Lieutenant dismissed the guy and left himself a few moments later without saying anything else except to get his guards to follow him. I opened a portal to the warehouse, then opened a smaller one under his car so I could stick a tracker on where I thought they wouldn’t find it easily. I thought about following him, but I didn’t really need to tonight. There was nothing else I had to do tonight, so I dumped the guns in the warehouse for the sorter-bots to take care of, then opened a portal to the safe house. 

 

* * *

 

Next day I started on the money problem. I had a pile of cash, most of it in large denominations which is not so good for casual purchases. On the other hand I had a handful of credit cards which would be cancelled soon. I couldn’t exactly get a cash advance since I had no PINs for them, but I could do a buttload of shopping with them. All I needed was a P.O. box and a stable internet connection. The first was simple enough to do, and the second was even easier since I had untraceable internet in my warehouse. I went on a bit of a shopping spree, getting heaps of clothes, a bunch of luxuries for my house, and a dozen industrial sized meat locker freezers. They were delivered to a few random addresses if they couldn’t go to the PO box and I had Gladys and Cera help me move the stuff through portals to where I wanted them. 

With the freezers set up, I moved the bodies into them to be preserved. Of course I was going to hoard dead bodies, why wouldn’t I? Like I said to the DM when he asked why I kept storing corpses in my bag of holding during my first D&D game; you never know when you might need a dead body. Using a couple of dead goblins to distract a trio of ogres that we couldn’t beat at level 2 and giving a mutated troll corpse to a curious wizard just proved me right. Don’t know what I’m gonna do with this lot, but I’ll figure it out when the time comes. 

After a week of no gang members harassing me, I felt safe enough to try and meet some new people. Bad idea. I’d lulled myself into a false sense of security and got myself shot through the boob on the way to a bar. I sent out Gladys to find the shooter as I gasped for breath. It took about a minute to fully heal, spitting out the bullet fragments from the wound and stitching my lung back together was not exactly painful, it felt more like when your entire leg is numb and you try to walk. Gladys had brought the shooter over to me by then, and he looked horrified as I stood back up, wiping the  blood off me as best I could. 

“C’mon man, what was that for?” I asked, sticking my finger through the hole in my clothes. “I’ve only got two good bras, and now I probably can’t use this one anymore”

He just gaped at me, not saying anything coherent. 

“Okay look, tell you what, I’ll give you a warning this time if you tell your bosses to lay off me. Sound fair?”

He just kind of nodded, still staring at where he shot me, or maybe just at my tits. The guy was in his early twenties and probably hadn’t been this close to a girl before. 

I rolled my eyes a little and nodded for Gladys to knock him out. I dragged him over to a side street, took everything he had, and went back home. So much for that. 

He didn’t have a lock on his phone, so I went through his contact list and found one called Mr Malone (boss). Looking at the texts, there was the description of me from a few days ago, one saying he’d seen me about twenty minutes ago, a confirmation from the boss to shoot me right after, then another five minutes ago asking for an update. I texted him back

_Hey there dickweed, this is the girl you wanted shot. How about you lot leave me alone and I leave you lot alone. Sound good?_

The reply came two minutes later

_Sure thing hon. Just repay us for the loss of revenue, the shit you stole from us, the medical bills for the arm you broke and for the lives of my guys you killed and we can call it quits_

Gee, what a nice guy. Not condescending at all. Time for a message I suppose. 

_Fine. Say goodbye to your clubhouse then_

After sending that, I destroyed the phone. I didn’t really want to speak to him again, and if I needed to I just had to find one of his guys and take their phone. 

 

I portalled through the warehouse to the flop house where they’d been meeting a few days ago. I reached out telepathically to make sure there were no innocent people in the building or the ones either side. I found a couple of crooks, a few low level thugs, a handful of murderers, a bunch of people drinking after they’d won big on dog fights, and absolutely zero redeemable people within a 5k radius. I concentrated on the dog fight group, digging for the location of the fights. A textile factory a dozen blocks away, with the manager organising them. My telepathic powers aren’t finely honed just yet, so the general scan would be mostly unnoticed, but that search would’ve given them a weird headache that they’d definitely notice. Not that it mattered, they were on the second floor of the flophouse. 

“Chazza, Blast Burn” I say, standing on a roof across the street with him. Chazza unleashed an enormous gout of fire that melted the front half of the building and exploded inside. Nothing would be left of the building soon except ash and slag. I stood on the roof with my draconic friend and watched it burn, feeling only a hollow anger at the people inside. 

 

We made the news. A few rubberneckers had seen us and got some amateur footage of us standing on the roof in the flickering light of the fire. They were calling me a real life Danaerys, commanding what could only be described as a dragon near a fire that couldn’t be extinguished for six hours, evaporating the water and fire retardant foam the fire department used, and even the good samaritan cryo and pyro Conduits couldn’t do shit to contain it. The whole city block had been reduced to a smouldering pile of rubble. There were no good shots of my face, but there were some good ones of Chazza. When we disappeared through an unseen portal underfoot it caused a bit of a commotion, including speculation that I was the antichrist. 

I thought about sending a message to the news station, telling them about the kind of people who had been in the buildings, but I decided against it. I didn’t need to be called a vigilante, or an avenging angel, or a madwoman. I was none of those things. I was an angry arsehole who had chosen to be pursued by a gang because it sounded fun. This was merely the consequence of my choice and I had to live with it. 

 

The next night I went to the textile factory. I switched into my Pokéworld boy form, figuring that would draw less attention, and with the large wad of cash I showed the doorman no one cared that I was barely over twenty-one with no ID.  

I had Archie sneaking around the room, blocking any exits he found. I didn’t want anyone escaping. 

The next thing was to get the dogs out. The poor things weren’t to blame for this horrific activity. They were starved, tortured, baited, and trained to attack, to fight, to kill. Under different circumstances they’d be happy and friendly giant puppies like any other dog. This barbaric bloodsport had to end. 

I laid down a floor of ice just before the first fight was to begin, freezing everyone’s legs, except the dogs’. I brought out Sparkles, who released a mass thunderwave, paralysing everyone, including the dogs. There were only four of them - two rotties, a pit bull, and a mastiff - so I had Chazza, Gladys, and Cera help me out, each of us taking one dog into warehouse and putting them in stasis pods. I’d find somewhere that could rehabilitate the poor babies. 

As for the godforsaken turds that were responsible for turning innocent beasts into fighting machines, I considered burning them as well, but I decided that would be too easy. 

I returned to the mass of people, back as my Infamous self. Some had shaken off the effect and trying to break free of the ice, but most were still stiff and staticky. 

I went to each person in turn, freezing their eyeballs and genitals, then shattering them. With each, I made sure to raid their mind and remove any decent description of me, just leaving a generic description of someone wearing a hat and a hoodie that could be male or female. 

There were three people of interest to me in the group. The first was an undercover police officer, infiltrating the dog fights to try and stop them. It was only his second night here though and he expected the operation to last for months. Not good enough, it would take too long. I appreciate that doing things through the proper channels takes time, but I wasn’t part of their structure and was answerable only to myself and Chan. I left him intact, merely freezing his eyes shut and removing his memory of me. I wrote a note explaining that I was only here to help the dogs and punish the ones who made them fight, and slipped it into his wallet behind his ID. 

The second interesting person was the manager of the factory. Raiding her mind I found eighteen others who bred and trained dogs for the fights. She deserved something a little extra for being the one to start all this, so I reached out for the dogs’ minds and poured all their horrified and horrific memories into her head. I froze her mouth shut so she couldn’t scream properly as she was forced to relive every moment those poor pups had lived through. I took out the switchblade I got off the douchebag the other night and carved MONSTER into her forehead, nice and deep, then gave her a small healing pulse, just enough to ensure it scarred nicely. I’d be visiting those other trainers soon enough, and she’d never forget just what she was and what she’d done. 

Last, and certainly not least, was Mr Malone himself. He didn’t look like any kind of mobster or gang leader. He looked kinda like an accountant, or a manager at Maccas. Still, it was good to meet him, and I told him so as I froze his tongue in his mouth and smashed it by punching his jaw shut. I left him his eyes while I destroyed his genitals and thumbs. I raided his mind and wrote down every crime he was part of or privy to. Then I destroyed his eyes and memory of my face, and stuck the sheets of crimes to his forehead with a thumbtack I found in the office down the hall. I took the security tapes from the office, wiped the copies and destroyed the hard drive they were on, then double and triple checked that I hadn’t left any DNA or fingerprints anywhere before putting on gloves and calling the police with the cop’s phone, switching to my bodymod to talk, telling them that police and ambulances were needed at this location. I wiped it down to ensure there was no trace of me on it and left it on the ground in front of the cop, still on the line with the operator. 

I had Sparkles give them another thunderwave before we portalled into the warehouse, leaving a pinhole open in a corner halfway up the wall, all but unnoticeable unless you knew it was there. 

 

It took about seven minutes for first responders to get there. I heard a lot of swearing and some throwing up. I suppose it was rather grisly, but I was still detached, cold anger coursing through me. They found Malone and the crime list fairly quickly, and there was some incredulous swearing and calling in of higher ups.

I closed the portal once everyone was taken away and they finished the forensics. They hadn’t said they found anything, but there was a lot of talk about how gruesome it was. 

 

I hadn’t let my anger get the best of me in a long time, and never like this. What had I done? That was... brutal. Horrific. Terrible. They deserved it, a voice whispered in the side of my mind. The voice was my own, the same voice that I thought with when I saw school shooters and rapists, the voice of retributive rage. Not my full anger, just a part that was directed at those who did terrible things to others for no good reason. The part that made me want to hurt people for doing bad things. I knew that part of me was often right, but it was normally tempered by the part of me that was cold and professional, the part of me that made sure I didn’t leave evidence at the crime scene. Destroy the wicked but make it clean. That was how I normally thought of it when my mind was detached from emotions but still feeling anger underneath it. 

I knew that disassociating like that was unhealthy and tried to avoid it, but it still happened. 

I needed time away from things that would put me in that state, but first I needed to finish rescuing the dogs. A quick Google search found a good shelter that would take care of them and I could take them there tomorrow. 

It took a large donation, but there were no questions asked when I dropped off four mistreated dogs. A quick scan of their minds told me that they wouldn’t have room for all the potential dogs, so I’d have to search for a few other places. 

That was my next couple of weeks. I went to each of the breeders, gave them clean deaths, and took their dogs to various safe places, leaving large donations with each place. I rescued twenty-nine dogs from the bastards and used their money to make sure the dogs would have a decent shot at a good life. 

 

The next few months I avoided going out in public whenever I could. Apart from a few trips to Sanjeev’s shop for more supplies, the only place I went was the roof of the abandoned apartment building. Being up there helped me put things in perspective. 

The world is big, and we are small. All you can do is try your best and help each other out. 

Yeah, okay. I think I know what I’m going to do. 

 

* * *

 

The next few weeks is spent tracking down rival gangs, generally ones that limit themselves to white collar crimes with minimal impact on regular people rather than the equivalent of a schoolyard bully with a gun. That found me three gangs that were focused on being seen as upstanding members of society but weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty from time to time, and two that were actually beneficial to their communities, one styled themselves a Robin Hood operation while the other had massive amounts of blackmail material on local government figures that kept their territory safe and on the up and up. 

In exchange for brokering deals between them and ferreting out any rats in their organisations, they’d help me get rid of the gang that was after me, as well as a few others that I had looked into and didn’t like. They’d divvy up the area between them and form a pseudo-syndicate built on mutual respect and similar values. 

 

It took nineteen months to officially disband the gang that wanted my head, a lot of their boss guys having ...accidents in cold storage units, restaurant freezers, parks in winter, just general places where an icicle might break off and skewer you, or you could get stuck and freeze to death. It was all very tragic. They were losing members faster than they could promote people to fill the positions. Most of the non-violent members found themselves being headhunted by my new friends, while the more despicable ones found I was more literal about the phrase. It gave me some good target practice with the sniper rifle I’d bought. 

Two of the gangs I had scouted but disliked found themselves losing territory as well. It wouldn’t be feasible to take out every gang, mob, and mafia that I didn’t agree with, but I could at least do something to try and make things better in this area. I had ice and psychic powers, as well as half a dozen elemental monsters. That meant I could do a lot of damage by accident or design. It was up to me to direct that damage to places it would do good by doing harm. 

 

* * *

 

It was strange, but I actually made friends while I was here. I didn’t expect that. They weren’t like the friends I’d made in Pokéworld. With them it had been friendships with emotional connections, but with these guys it was more the kind of friendship where you meet up, go drinking or partying, just have fun with each other but not really worry too much if you don’t see them for a while. 

It was about four years in, while we were clubbing one time (it took a few tries, but I did start to enjoy clubbing. Never thought it would happen in my first life), that I met someone who I did connect with. Sarah was amazing. She was smart, with a sense of humour dryer than the Sahara, and a fondness for books that matched my own. We talked for a couple of hours before she invited me back to her place where we talked more, as well as some activities that weren’t quite PG. 

 

Holy shit. Just, holy shit. Girls are amazing. How do you go back to guys after being with a girl? Fucking incredible. They can do everything a boy does and more. Much more. Maybe it’s because I haven’t gotten laid in over a decade, but fuck me sideways (and she did), lesbian sex is the frocking best. 

 

* * *

 

We dated for about six months before I brought her back to my place. She was the first person who had ever been to my safe house, and the first person outside of my original universe who had met Evil. He did not react the way I expected. He’s fairly standoffish to most people, and he’s a real sweetheart with me most of the time, but Evil really did not like her. His pupils contracted to slits, he half crouched in fight-or-flight position, and he let out a low yowl. In hindsight, that should’ve been my first clue. Always trust your pet’s intuition. 

“I’m sorry, he’s not normally like this” I told her as I picked him up, trying to soothe him. He just flattened his ears at her and tried to wriggle out of my arms. 

“It’s alright, he’s probably just reacting to my sister’s dog” she said lightly, holding out her hand for him to sniff. He recoiled and went to leap away from her. 

“I didn’t know your sister had a dog,” I said, still wrangling Evil. “I didn’t know you had a sister either.” 

“I couldn’t get a word in with you raving about your family all the time,” she smirked. 

I took Evil out the back, where there was a small, cracked patio, a patch of mostly green grass, and an herb garden that I’d cultivated. I wasn’t big on gardening, but most herbs don’t require much attention; mine seemed to thrive on benign neglect. 

“There you go puds, don’t jump the fence or anything” I told him as I put him on my one comfy outdoor chair. He never had jumped the fence, but I always told him anyway, just in case. “I’ll see you later wuss puss, I love you.”

He gave a chirpy meow in response and went to hunt bugs and lizards in the grass as I went back inside, leaving the sliding door open a fraction for him. 

I went back to the main room to find Sarah looking over my library. Well I say library, it was really just two Ikea shelves I’d stuffed with as many books as possible. The hardest part was getting them with non-American spelling, the HP series was especially annoying to find since even the few that were published as Philosopher’s Stone instead of Sorcerer’s Stone still had the wrong (read American) spelling. 

“Find anything you like?” I asked, coming up behind her and resting my chin on her shoulder. 

“Just browsing. You have a few that I’ve not read yet,” she said, running her finger over my collection of Discworld books. “I haven’t read any Terry Pratchett, but I heard his work is quite preachy.”

I guffawed at that. There is no other word to describe the noise I made. 

“Sure PTerry’s work isn’t perfect, nothing is, but preachy isn’t a critique I’ve heard of his work. He uses magical analogies and deconstructs fantasy tropes to create commentary on real world issues, rather blatantly in his later works. But even ignoring that, his books are worth reading for the plot and humour alone. I think you’d enjoy them.” I tend to be a tad passionate about Sir PTerry, he is my favourite author after all, but I spoke quite calmly, not wanting to put her off. 

“Perhaps. I’m not really into SJW stuff though. If I wanted to read political commentary I’d read the president’s biography.” She turned around and kissed me, which distracted me from the huge waving red flag. 

We had dinner and watched tv for a few hours. She squirmed a little when there was a news bite about a spate of Conduit deaths in the city. I did too, it was only a matter of time before the drawback Chan gave me caught up with me. 

“You’re worried about the killer?” Sarah asked me. “I thought you were part of the power bloc of gangs, why would one person make you nervous?”

“More like a consultant than an actual member. But that’s not why I’m worried. The killer is only going after Conduits,” I took a deep breath and formed a small ice crystal on my upturned hand, “and I’ve got a feeling that I’m going to be a target.”

Sarah gasped at my display of power and her eyes shone with ...something. It was hard to tell. Intrigue? Envy? Lust? I went with lust, purely because she started making out with me, almost like she was trying to suck my powers out through my mouth. Again, hindsight makes it fairly obvious, but at the time I had a beautiful girl all over me. 

 

The next month or so, things felt different between us. She seemed more focused on my powers than myself. It took another few weeks for the relationship to completely break down and me to leave her. 

She didn’t give up easy though. She came by my now ironically titled safe house a few times, trying to get in or to get me out. Eventually, I had to leave. Easier said than done. 

Turns out the uptick in Conduit killings was partially because my old buddies in the drawback gang hadn't broken up, just went underground, and had been hunting down any cryo Conduits they could find. The chatter amongst my mates in the syndicate I’d helped build was enough to tip them off to my general location. 

I’d moved anything large I’d wanted to keep into the warehouse, and everything else went into my bag of holding. I wasn’t sure where I was going to go, but I figured I’d head somewhere colder. Canada maybe, or Antarctica. I’d always wanted to go there, but Canada seemed a more feasible destination for now since I was cycling out of Chicago. 

I could run just shy of 60kph, and move about half again as fast on my bike, but cars can move even faster, and bullets faster still. I was barely outside my neighbourhood when all these facts collided, as did the shots from the gang and my back. My regen kicked in immediately, but it would take too long to heal enough to fight the dozen or so people with guns, so I opened a portal under me directly to the medbay and closed it as much as I could. Not being able to close it while I’m inside is really bullshit right now. 

The medbay sped up my regen and made sure I didn’t heal with bullets inside me. Once healed, I opened a portal to my safe house so I could close the one to where I was shot. 

Take two was a little more cautious. I headed to the train station that took me out of the city just before dawn. I don’t know how they knew where I was, but the train I was going to catch was empty except for them, and I now have two train carriages in my warehouse along with another dozen bodies. 

I’m guessing that this was Chan’s subtle influence to try and keep me in the city, but fuck that. Third time’s the charm. 

I fucking flew out of the city on my doombird with my dragon and ghost golem running interference. Good thing too, they had half a dozen motherfucking attack helicopters. How the fuck does a gang that had been underground for over a year get six thrice bedamned military grade helicopters? Not that they could stand up to even a single punch from Gladys, she could probably dent adamantium, but that’s hardly the point. They also sent out a few Conduits that could fly, but Chazza had no problem taking them down. 

I was gonna have serious words with Chan about this bullshit. There was never anything that said I had to stay in the starting city, so why the fuck was it so fucking hard to leave? 

Between the two of them, it barely took five minutes to remove the obstacles presented to us. We landed and I had Archie check for any hidden enemies while I opened and closed portals, collecting the guns and choppers. They were pretty beat up, one had its rotors bent into the cabin and two were crushed like soft drink cans, but I wasn’t letting them go to waste. 

 

It took Mort a couple of hours to make it to the border. I went through an official gate to Canada since I didn’t want any awkward questions if I ran into some legal problems. I was only going to be staying for a few months, but after what happened with my Chicago exodus, I’m expecting my drawback stalker to be right around the corner. 

 

* * *

 

I had a Canadian friend back in my original life. I thought about trying to look them up, but I figured that a) I wasn’t now who I was then, b) there’s no guarantee that people I knew from the ‘real’ world would be in the pseudo-fictional world I was currently in, and c) turning up out of the blue from a different country to say hi wasn’t exactly good form in any universe. 

Instead, I decided to play tourist. It was fun, seeing all the sights and visiting all the places, but the whole time I was expecting to be attacked and kept looking over my shoulder. 

It took three months for my stalker to show her face. I’m sure you guessed who it turned out to be, and if I had been thinking clearly I would’ve picked up on it too, but I was distracted, still processing things I’d done to get here. 

 

I was out in the middle of nowhere somewhere in Quebec, riding my bike to Newfoundland and Labrador to see if they had all the big dogs the name promised, when a car came driving up and a bolt of lightning came out its window and shocked me right off the bike. It wasn’t an especially strong bolt, but it was enough to send me skidding about ten metres away. 

Swearing, I watched the car drive off before standing up and half hobbling back to my bike. 

I’d just picked it back up when I heard it coming back. This time I was expecting it. I ran off the road and called out Sparkles nearby. When the bolt shot out the window, it arced towards him instead. It seemed like the electricity tried to move off him and hit me, but it just turned back on itself as my electric dog rabbit absorbed it for a power up. He yapped happily, not having had much electricity given to him since we left Pokéworld. 

The car came back around and stopped a short way from where Sparkles and I were standing. I stared at the darkened windscreen, not sure who to expect. 

Out came two large men from the front. One trained a gun on me as the other opened the back door for whomever they’d been driving. Out she stepped, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. 

“Hi Hannah, how are you sweetheart?” Sarah asked, looking immaculate and spectacular, even dressed in jeans and a hoodie meant to not attract attention. “It’s so good good to see you again. I was devastated when you left me.”

I was kicking myself at this point. Of course it was Sarah, of course it was. It was an obvious play, narratively speaking, since that would give the protagonist, i.e. me, the biggest kick in the guts, and at the same time let the audience feel smart for figuring it out before anyone in-world did. What can I say? I’m a cynical consumer of fiction that tends to overdo crap like this. 

“Fucking fuck. Thanks a whole fucking lot Chan! You’ve fucking turned this fucking ordeal into a fucking cliché!” I called out at the sky, confusing my ex and her bodyguards, who looked at each other and shrugged. “You couldn’t have just let it be a fucking normal relationship that deteriorated due to interpersonal differences could you? Oh no, that wouldn’t have been nearly as fucking entertaining, would it?! No! You had to make her my fucking unwanted fucking drawback! Fucking thanks a fucking bunch!”

My ranting at the sky to an unknown entity probably made me seem more unstable than I was to the three known entities trying to confront me, so I growled to cut off the rest of my cussing cascade, and glowered at them. 

“It’s alright, Hannah. I know why you left,” Sarah said, trying to sound soothing, but with an edge that told me I’d really put her off her game. She’d been trying to put me off my guard, not out of my mind. “I know why, and it’s ok. I understand. You had to leave because of your Conduit power. All you have to do is give it to me and we can be together again.”

It was my turn to be confused now. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked, completely bewildered. “I left because you started stalking me after we broke up and there was a gang wanting my head on a pike. It had noth-”

“Sshhhhh, it’s ok, I know you didn’t want to leave me,” she said, cutting me off. “Everything that’s happened has been because of your ice infecting your life. Just give it up and we can be together again”

She held up a hand and shot a bolt of electricity at me, which again arced into my Jolteon. She frowned at this strange turn. 

“Take out the Conduit dog” she told her men. 

“Don’t you fucking dare!” I yelled, leaping towards them. I pulled my ice baton off my belt, pushing cold into it, and brought it down on the left one’s arm before he could obey. The second one, who’d had his gun on me, hadn’t been prepared for how fast I could move, and had fired wide at my movement. I spun around and cracked him across the side of the head, knocking him out. I turned back to the first, who was holding his frost-covered broken arm and I catapulted him into the air with a fast rising ice platform underneath him. 

Before I could turn back to Sarah, there was a sharp blow to my back which stunned me for a minute with the electricity shocking my nerves. 

“You shouldn’t fight, Hannah. I know you really want to be with me, but hurting my men won’t make things go easier” Sarah said, standing over me. She was holding something that looked like cattle-prod on steroids, and it was glowing and crackling with electricity the same way my ice mace did with cold. Shit

“See? You don’t need power because I already do. So just give me yours and we can be together” she said so sweetly butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. She hit me again as I regained movement, this time on the side of my head, making my vision swim. 

Fuck. She was saying something else, probably more insane crap about giving her power. As if I would even if I could. Fuck. She hit me again. She was laughing now, I think Sparkles was trying to zap her, but that wouldn’t work. She absorbed electricity like he did. Even if he used a non-electric move, it wouldn’t stop her for long. She could grab a gun and shoot him. I was too woozy from having my head zapped and bashed to do anything much until I healed more. I couldn’t move my arms to call him back or send out someone else. Fuck... wait, there’s one thing...

“Spar...kles...” I managed to slur, “Volt Switch”

Crackling with electricity, Sparkles tackled her, sending her sprawling from the impact but unharmed by the electricity. He then disappeared in a red beam into his pokéball, and out came Gladys. 

My ghostly golem took one look at the scene around her and stared at Sarah, the usually calm golden glow from her eyes now a harsh burning yellow. She tightened her fists and walked slowly towards the one who had been the cause of my pain. 

Sarah saw her advancing and tried hitting her with increasingly large bolts of electricity, but to no avail. They just hit Gladys and were grounded with no effect. Gladys hit the poor bitch with a full force, iron fist boosted Mega Punch. One hit KO. Sarah was sent flying into the car, denting the door, and didn’t move. 

After making sure her foe wasn’t getting back up, Gladys was instantly by my side, picking me up and hugging me tight. 

“Yeah baby, I’m ok. I’m alright now,” I was saying, patting her on the corporeal parts of her back. “Thank you Gladys, you did a great job. Thank you so much”

It took a couple minutes to fully heal, and a couple more for Gladys to let me go from the protective hug, but once I was let go and all good, I went to check on my three attackers. 

The man I’d knocked out was mostly fine, just a really nasty bump on his head, and the one I’d catapulted had his broken arm and now a broken leg, but neither were too serious. The real concern, though, was Sarah. She had several shattered ribs, a dented skull, and probably a few spinal segments out of whack. I gave a quick healing ice pulse to the two men, enough to allow them to move, and gave a large one to Sarah, but it wasn’t a replacement for actual treatment. I told the men to drive as fast as they could to a hospital and take advantage of Canada’s free health care system since they were still pretty badly hurt. They agreed to say they were in an accident and never try to come for me again. I also told them in no uncertain terms that I had no interest in Sarah and they should make that clear to her, and if she still wanted to pursue me then they should get her serious psychological help. 

 

That’s the last I ever saw of her, thankfully. Maybe if I had stayed near any form of civilisation, then it’d be different, but as it was I got the hell away from everything and avoided contact with people for the rest of my tenure. 

I travelled to the world’s coldest places: Greenland, Russia, the North Pole; cycling or flying, on Chazza, Mort, or Gladys for long distances, and telekinetically or on my own wing for the rest. I finally settled down in the one place I’d wanted to visit since I was five years old: Antarctica. I made friends with a small flock of friendly penguins and took daily swims in the subzero waters. I can’t think of a better way to have spent my last year and a half. 

 

I was floating on my back, watching Pingu and Pongu teach their chick how to slide along the ice into the water when time came to a halt. 

“I am so fucking ready to leave. I love my penguin buddies, but get me the fuck out of this universe, right the fuck now please, Chan” I said, hearing footsteps on the water behind me. 

“Alright, no need to swear, darlin’” she replied, and the world faded away.

**Author's Note:**

> The bit about lesbian sex is near verbatim what my friend was texting me after her first girlfriend. I was cacking myself when she did. She regrets texting me that, but as far as I know she hasn't changed her mind


End file.
